1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medium alignment apparatus, and more particularly, to a medium alignment apparatus correctly detecting an aligned state of a medium when performing alignment of the medium, thereby increasing reliability in alignment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, an automatic teller machine (ATM) refers to an automated apparatus providing fundamental monetary services, such as payment and withdrawal of cash and checks, using a card or a bankbook regardless of time and places without a bank teller.
Recently, use of the ATM is not limited to banking facilities such as banks but expanded to convenience stores, department stores, and other public places.
The ATM may be classified into a cash dispenser, a cash receiver, and a cash dispenser and receiver. In these days, the ATM is used for not only payment and withdrawal of cash but also payment and withdrawal of checks, bankbook arrangement, fee payment by giro, ticketing, and the like.
Nowadays, the cash receiver among the foregoing types is applying a technology for receiving different types of paper medium, such as cash and checks, together rather than separately.
A structure of the ATM as the cash receiver will be briefly described. The ATM may include a housing to form a main body, a medium receiving portion to receive a paper medium such as cash and checks, a medium transfer portion including a plurality of rollers to transfer the paper medium received through the medium receiving portion, a medium detection portion mounted on a path of the medium transfer portion to detect whether the paper medium includes double sheets, a medium recognition portion to recognize data of the paper medium, a medium alignment portion to align the paper medium before the paper medium is delivered to the medium recognition portion, a temporary stack portion to temporarily store the received paper medium, a retract portion to retract a non-received paper medium among the paper medium, a reject portion to store a paper medium detected to be abnormal by the medium detection portion and rejected, and a cassette portion to finally store the received paper medium. The cassette may include a cash cassette to store only cash and a check cassette to store only checks.
According to the foregoing structure, the paper medium may be received through the medium receiving portion and transferred to the respective corresponding cassettes, passing through the temporary stack portion by the medium transfer portion.
The medium alignment portion is adapted to align a paper medium of different sizes and types, for example cash and checks having different widths and lengths from each other, with reference to one side so that the paper medium is transferred in an aligned state. In particular, by aligning checks, the medium alignment portion helps correctly acquire data of the checks.
However, in the conventional ATM used as the cash receiver, an error may occur when the medium alignment portion detects an aligned state of a medium. Therefore, when a non-aligned paper medium is transferred to a next step from the medium alignment portion, recognition of the medium may not be normally performed. Consequently, reliability of a cash receiving operation may be reduced.
Accordingly, there is a desire for an improved medium alignment apparatus and an ATM including the medium alignment apparatus, capable of correctly detecting an aligned state of a paper medium.